Mark Dunn - American Decameron

Eileen sighed. She exchanged a look of frustration with her son. Michael Junior was back in Middle-earth. Julia had returned to The Other , and her younger sister, Donna, was creeping warily up to the temporarily abandoned Exorcist as if it were something to be conquered through dint of will and intestinal fortitude. Donna had been told by her friend, Sherell, who had already read the book, that there was projectile vomiting in there.

Everyone took to the waters for a few minutes at least and allowed the surf to knock them off their feet — for a bit. Michael Junior tried to build a sandcastle and ended up with a sand hogan with no windows. And later, just as their father had ordered, there were greasy vacation hamburgers at the Pink Pony Pub, and Skee-Ball at the Hangout, and all the tickets dispensed by the old-fashioned Skee-Ball bowling machines were pooled and redeemed for a plastic Hawaiian hula dancer, and this went to Donna because her wildly bowled wooden ball had hit a Coca-Cola clock and knocked the minute hand off and she had been mortified with embarrassment.

That night Michael Senior and his mother, Eileen, and his three children, whose mother lived in London with her second husband, a network television news correspondent, ate fried shrimp and crab claws at the Sea-n-Suds restaurant down the beach from their motel. Each of the three offspring of Michael Cameron tried their best to be glib and engaging at the table, as dinner conversation meandered from New Orleans and the late, great Louis Armstrong to the subject of Jim Morrison, the lead singer for the rock-and-roll band The Doors, who only a few days earlier had been found dead at the young age of twenty-seven in his bathtub. Michael Senior had not been familiar with the details of Mr. Morrison’s untimely demise, the actual cause still open to speculation, while Eileen Cameron was unclear as to whom Jim Morrison even was , and wondered if he’d ever played the trumpet or sang in a phlegmy voice like Louis.

“And you say we’re the ones the world is passing by!” proclaimed Julia, her palms up and open in the universal gesture for “so there!”

Eileen began to butter her dinner roll with hard strokes. “I thought one of the reasons for this trip was to get you kids out and interacting with other young people. Why, just last night there was a big weenie roast on the beach, and none of you seemed the least bit interested.”

“It wasn’t groovy enough for us,” replied Donna with gentle sarcasm. “Are you ashamed of us, Grandma? It sounds like you’re ashamed of us.”

“Of course I’m not! I just wish — oh, pooh. Forget I brought it up. I know my place in this family. As soon as we get back to the motel room, I’m going to pull out my new Miss Marple, and you won’t hear another peep out of me.” Eileen took a bite of her roll and then began chewing while staring sulkily at the ceiling.

“We didn’t mean to upset you, Grandma,” said Julia as she placed a conciliatory hand on her grandmother’s arm.

Michael Junior’s expression now turned solemn. “The old that is strong does not wither. Deep roots are not reached by frost.” Michael Junior enjoyed quoting J.R.R. Tolkien whenever a relevant opportunity presented itself.

“How are the hush puppies, sport?” asked Michael Senior, plucking a puppy off his son’s plate. “Yum,” he said, answering his own question.

The Cameron family did not return to the Seahorse Motel. They strolled to the end of a nearby pier and gazed down upon the reflection of the moon on the water. They waited for feelings to come to them that did not derive from the pages of books.

The Camerons weren’t alone; a man and woman were there as well. Perhaps they were in their twenties. Perhaps they were on their honeymoon. The woman was sitting on the flat top of the wooden railing, in front of her boyfriend — or husband — who was holding her loosely around the waist from behind. The couple had greeted the Camerons with polite smiles and then returned to their close-contact moonlit cooing.

A moment or so later the woman cried out in pain. “Something’s biting me! Something’s biting me!” She slapped at her left thigh. Then she jumped to one side so that the clinch with the young man was broken. Then the woman cried, “Ooh! Ooh!” and began jerking and wriggling as if the thing biting her was intensifying its attack. In the midst of all the jumping and squirming the woman lost her balance upon the railing and toppled from the pier.

She fell, screaming all the way down, and hit the dark, swishing water below with an audible smack. Her young companion peered over the rail and then turned and looked at the middle-aged man and the three adolescent children and the mature woman who comprised the Michael Cameron family of Lexington, Kentucky, each member appearing to the distressed man just as horrified by what they had just witnessed as he appeared to them. “She can’t swim!” he announced in a terrified voice. “And neither can I!”

A moment later, all of the Camerons, with the exception of Eileen, who though strong and unwithered did not find herself so motivated, sprang into action. In fast succession they slipped off their shoes and leapt from the pier — one, two, three, four — from the opposite side, each allowing sufficient space between them so as to avoid landing upon a fellow family member and inviting additional complications. It was Michael Senior who hit the water closest to the drowning young woman and who employed the lifesaving technique he had read about as a teenager in The Red Cross Lifesaving and Water Safety Manual . He received encouragement and support from his three children, who tossed sloshy words of counsel to the young woman along the lines of “You’re okay,” “Calm down,” and “Stop struggling, he’s got you,” and the literary, though somewhat incongruous, “All’s well that ends well.”

With the young woman dragged to shore and laid out upon the wet sand, Julia cleared the water from the victim’s lungs in a manner she was familiar with from having read about such near-drowning episodes in at least three different novels, one of which led its characters — a lifeguard and office receptionist on holiday — into a serious, long-term Harlequin romance. The operation was so successful that it wasn’t even necessary to take the woman to the hospital. It remained a mystery what had bitten her on the thigh, although Michael Junior surmised that it was probably an insomniac sandfly, which he had read about in a book entitled Predators of the Littoral Regions of North America .

“I don’t know how to thank you,” said the woman’s boyfriend — or husband — who shook the hands of all the Camerons, including that of the morally supportive grandmother. Eileen felt a burst of family pride that put a long-lived smile upon her face. The young woman was grateful as well, though shaken up and distracted by the itch of the causal bites.

The Camerons returned to their motel room after a long walk on the beach and a lively group recap of their thrilling accomplishment — a team effort, a family activity that diminished all others by comparison.

This was much better than a weenie roast.

After hot showers and the donning of robes and bedclothes, each of the children and their father curled up or spread out — such as the case was — with a book. Michael Senior put down The New Centurions and picked up The Underground Man , the latest of Ross Macdonald’s hardboiled Lew Archer detective novels. Julia returned to The Other , while her sister Donna, with fresh groans and assorted expressions of distaste and disgust, revisited the Satan-sanctioned assaults upon the dignity of fathers Merrin and Karras. Michael Junior renewed his affiliation with Frodo Baggins; Frodo’s cousins Pip and Merry; the wizard Gandalf; and Legolas, son of King Thranduil.